mine frightened to go along a head-station.'

Lady Bridget laughed hysterically. What a contrast between the romantic
hero of her dreams and the figure of the black-boy before her. Wombo
had been in the wars. Very little was left of the trim understudy of
Moongarr Bill. He was hatless; his Crimean shirt was torn into ribbons;
his moleskin breeches were covered with blood and dirt; the strap belt,
with its sheath-knife and various pouches, was gone, and this, judging
from the state of his legs and feet, had been forcibly removed.

A gash from a tomahawk disfigured his head; the woolly hair was matted
with blood. But there remained still something of the PREUX CHEVALIER
about Wombo.

'Mine bring it gin belonging to me,' he announced with dignity, making
an introductory gesture towards what appeared almost an excresence upon
the black trunk of a gidia tree except for an old red blanket slung
round one shoulder, which only half covered a woman's dusky form.

'That Oola. Mine want 'im marry Oola. Black teller belonging to that
feller plenty COOLLA*. My been sneak camp. Me catch 'em Oola. Black
feller look out, throw 'im tomahawk, NULLA-NULLA*. My word! big feller
fight. Me YAN plenty quick. Oola YAN* plenty quick. Black feller come
after--throw 'im spear--close up MUMKULL*. BA'AL* can pull out spear,
Oola plenty cry.'

[*Coolla--in Blacks language, meaning Angry.]

[*Nulla-nulla--A black's weapon.]

[*Yan--To go away.]

[*Mumkull--To kill.]

[*Ba'al--No--Not.]

Oola joined in with the black's plaintive wail.

'YUCKE*! Poor fellow, Oola!'

[*Yucke!--Alas!]

Wombo pulled her forward. A comely half-caste who, as a child, had been
partially civilised by a stockman's wife on one of the Leura
out-stations, but who had, later, gone back to her tribe and married a
Myall, as the wild blacks are called. She was very young, soft and
round of outline, with hair straighter and more glossy than is usual
among her kind, and large black eyes now raining tears. She wiped them
away with a sooty hand, pink in the palm. Her left arm hung limp by her
side.

Lady Bridget jumped to her feet, all concern.

'Oh, you poor thing! You poor, poor thing,' she cried. For Wombo,
tweaking aside the concealing blanket, showed the smooth shaft of a
spear transfixed in the quivering flesh of Oola's arm, above the elbow.
He had broken off the long end of the spear to expedite their
flight--so he explained in his queer lingo--but Oola had